The i3D app shows off amazing head-tracking Glasses-free 3D technology using the iPhone 4, iPad 2 and iPod Touch 4G‘s front facing camera. It recognizes faces of both people and stuffed animals in an instant. i3D app for iOS devices is pretty limited. It is not much more than a showcase for the 3D technology as shown in the popular video posted below.

“i3D is an overview of Head-Coupled Perspective (HCP) on iOS devices. HCP uses the front camera of the device to track the face of the user in real time. This information tells the app how the user is looking at the display. The app updates the perspective of the 3D scene accordingly, giving the user the illusion that he looks at a small window.

i3D contains several 3D scenes that you can observe with HCP. It only relies on face tracking. It does not use the accelerometers or the gyroscopes.

The face tracking system does not detect and track the face in every lighting condition. Read the instructions in the app to get a good tracking.

Head-Coupled Perspective does not create a stereoscopic display! It provides a kind of monocular 3D display: the same picture is seen by both eyes. In the future, it might be combined with a stereoscopic display for a better 3D effect.

i3D has been developed by Jeremie Francone and Laurence Nigay at the Engineering Human-Computer Interaction (EHCI) Research Group of the Grenoble Informatics Laboratory (LIG), University Joseph Fourier (UJF).”

You can download i3D app for iPhone 4, iPad 2, and iPod Touch 4G from the App Store for Free. [Download Link]